Just received this email from ecotricity. Summary: Flat fee of £5 (GBP) for 20 miniutes charge, still free for Ecotricity energy customers. No more RFID cards, must use phone app. App shows live status info.
From: Ecotricity <[email protected]>
Subject: The Electric Highway is changing
I’m writing to you as a member of the Electric Highway to let you know of a
significant change to our service.
After five years of providing charging for free, we’re moving to a ‘charging for
charging’ model.
When we began in July 2011, there was a bit of a chicken and egg situation –
people were reluctant to buy electric cars because there were no charging
facilities being built, but nobody wanted to build those facilities while there
were still so few cars on the road. That’s when we jumped in to help kickstart the
electric car revolution in Britain.
And that’s going pretty well: today there are over 40 models to choose from and
64,000 plug-ins on the road. The Electric Highway itself comprises almost 300
electricity pumps – of the fast charging variety.
The combination of more cars on the road and faster charging means we're now
delivering two million miles of clean driving each month – all powered from the
wind and sun. That’s a great result. It’s also a growing cost. And to keep pace
with demand, we need to build more electricity pumps – at existing and new
locations.
So the time has come for us to charge – for charging.
We’ve taken a lot of feedback from EV drivers in order to arrive at the right
pricing model. We’ve decided that a simple flat fee of a fiver for a 20 minute
fast charge strikes the right balance.
Here’s how it will all work and when it will all happen
First, we’ve created an Electric Highway app. You’ll need this app to use our
pumps once we’ve changed over to the ‘charging for charging’ model.
The app will have other features that you’ll find useful. It will show you a live
feed of our entire network so you can see the location and availability of your
nearest pump, making it easier for you to plan your journeys. You’ll be able to
track the progress of your charge with the app’s charging countdown, and there’ll
be other features coming in the future.
The transition to ‘charging for charging’ will require a hardware upgrade of each
pump. We’ll start that work on Monday 11 July and we’re aiming to have the entire
network finished by Friday 5 August.
During this transition period, you’ll need the app for some pumps and your swipe
card for others. The app itself will tell you which pumps have switched over to
the new charging model.
Once the work is complete, our entire network will only be usable through the
Electric Highway app.
We’ve updated the FAQs
(https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-the-road/faqs) on the Ecotricity website to provide more
information, should you need it.
I hope this is all clear and that you’ll understand our need to finally move to
‘charging for charging’ – it’s the next vital step in the evolution of the
Electric Highway and it will allow us to continue to reinvest in improving and
expanding the network.
Viva the EV revolution
Thanks for being with us.
Dale Vince
P.S. Nearly forgot ... the Electric Highway will still be free to use for
Ecotricity energy customers – so if you’re not already a customer, now is a pretty
good time to switch. You’ll not only get free use of the Electric Highway, we’ll
give you a discount on your energy just for having an electric car. If you’d like
to switch, just click here.
(https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/for-your-home/switch/step1)
